John Keats

On Seeing The Elgin Marbles

by John Keats

My spirit is too weak; mortalityWeighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,And each imagined pinnacle and steepOf godlike hardship tells me I must dieLike a sick eagle looking at the sky.Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,That I have not the cloudy winds to keepFresh for the opening of the morning's eye.Such dim-conceived glories of the brain,Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rudeWasting of old Time -- with a billowy mainA sun, a shadow of a magnitude.

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